Sunday, August 9, 2015

An idealist at 40, still a prof after 10 years. Why?

Is academia the
best way to make the world a better place? Ten years ago, I thought it was best
for me, and that’s why I chose my current job as a professor at UBC.

Ljuba and I en route to Vancouver, and my job at UBC, in 2005

After ten years,
I’m 40 (today), and preparing my file to go up for promotion to full professor.
A big step, and a good time to reflect on the big question, given what I know
now. Although several senior colleagues have encouraged me, as I viewed CVs of
potential reviewers (leaders in my field), my mind is a-flutter with noise. Tossing
in bed last night, I pinned this ‘noise’ down to four points:

1.I did things starkly
differently over the past ten years than most of my senior colleagues (I
meandered more, intentionally learning broadly across disciplines);

2.The metrics by which I will be
evaluated (e.g., h-index for publications) are not those that guided my
choices, nor do they coincide very well with my objectives;

3.Despite my own commitments to a
different idea of success, I feel a constant unwelcome and often subconscious
pull towards established metrics and my colleagues’ notions of success;

4.I could have enjoyed much
higher success by established metrics if I’d made different choices (e.g.,
invested less in teaching and supervision).

So why am I still
at UBC, still contributing my best years to an institution that, at every turn,
seems to be rewarding a somewhat different career trajectory? I look around at
the leaders in conservation and sustainability science, and I see many leaders
operating in research positions with limited or no teaching, and even outside
of universities (e.g., in NGOs, so with minimal graduate supervision).

Students don't think we have balance. Hmph.

It’s fair to
wonder these days whether the best route to achieve even academic stardom is to eschew a regular tenure-track position, with
its exacting combination of research, teaching, and service. And since academic
stardom isn’t even my primary objective in life (it might coincide with my
objectives, but I’m more concerned with real-world impact), it’s worth deeply pondering
why I’m here.

It’s clear that
many of my students wonder the same, as they look at the intensity of a faculty
job and declare that they don’t want to follow our footsteps.

So, why am I
still here? Why are you, or would you be, in a university setting?

P.S. A theme I didn't explore explicitly here is
the appropriateness of established metrics as measures of excellence
and/or impact. They measure some things well but other things poorly. I promise to return to this issue soon, but in the
meantime let it be known that I and a small but vocal set of other profs
are certainly looking well beyond these metrics in various evaluation
processes.

[This is part 1 of 2. Read part 2 for my answer. A part 3 was added later, re: balance.]